Power outages worsen with the weather conditions
Residents have been logging calls and complain about Eskom's service to them.
Residents of Fourways have been struggling with power outages the past weeks and they demand that Eskom employees be on standby as they see that the rain and storms keep on knocking out the power because it’s just lines and transformers on high wooden poles. Kyalami, Glenferness and Treesbank residents, who all are supplied by Eskom, have been struggling when weather conditions are bad.
According to Ward 94 councillor, David Foley, a lady called him and pleaded with him to help her because she had no electricity for almost a week. “I have logged calls and tried contacting them a million times with no response. Please try and elevate the matter. I cannot live without electricity for this long. It is ridiculous,” said the complainant, Nadine Jackson. She further elaborated on how his issue affects her. “Without power for that long, I have no security and no water for my horses,” she said. meanwhile explaining how power has been on and off for three weeks. When Foley reported the matter, it was fixed within a space of two hours.
Many residents say this issue starts when they have load-shedding. “As soon as we have load-shedding, we know we won’t have power for a long time because right after load-shedding, we no longer have power. It has become a common occurrence now that after load-shedding, power simply does not come back,” said Glenferness resident, Tsabiso Letswala. In other instances, hours after load-shedding, residents will have electricity at about 02:00. When they wake up, they will not have electricity. Letswala says the biggest issue is that Eskom does not even communicate with them. “We don’t get a statement or anything even after we are required to log calls to raise our issues. There should be a response with a valid date,” he added.
Eskom spokesperson, Daphne Mokwena, replied to our enquiry by saying: “The cause of the outage was a cable fault that affected supply to certain parts of Kyalami. The fault was attended to, and supply was subsequently restored. Based on the reference numbers provided our records do not indicate that the customers were off for more than two days.” Residents plead that going forward they get communication and quick responses.
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